Monday, 25 August 2014

The colour theme for my post this week began with a bowl of beautiful rosy red plums, kindly given to us by a friend who lives nearby...........of course i had to take some pictures of the fruits before i made them into a crumble...............

.............and i used one of my large patchwork hexagon table mats in the photos too..........

.............the red kitchen mat is made the same way i made the pink summer table mats a while ago....

..............the hexies are 2 inch ones (that is, each side of the hexagon measures 2 inches) so the finished mat is a generous size..............i backed it with fusible wadding (batting) and a layer of white felt and then hand quilted through the three layers round the hexie shapes............you could use blanket stitch round the edge if you wished, or machine quilt the mat instead..............

.............the fussy cut centre is from a novelty kitchen print that has been in my stash for a while....now that the weather has cooled down (a lot) i am baking a bit more again..........

................the homemade cookie stamp was used on some simple but delicious shortcake biscuits which were served with strawberries and vanilla ice cream...............some other (red) things in my kitchen this week: a bunch of bright red radishes, my red and white greengate milk bottle, and a card from my sweet sister with one of my favourite dog images...........

.................the red table mat being made is shown below, with a picture of the back as requested by one of my dear readers, after i made the earlier hexie mats.......you quilt the layers together and then trim away the backing as neatly as possible around the edge.............

...........we have visited some gorgeous late august gardens recently, and i hope to show more pictures of them soon, but for this post, here is one i took of some rosy red apples.............

..............in our own garden the white japanese anemones are flowering merrily..........

...........i picked some for a posy with a spray of red geranium flowers..............

.............this little floral patchwork cushion is one i designed for crafts beautiful magazine and i have shown it here before......but now it is available to download from the crafts beautiful website here.....just look in the projects section for this and lots of other crafty inspiration..................

...............bright posies from the cutting garden, to place around the house..........still a few sweetpeas left though not many now...........the few zinnias the snails left for me are a nice bright addition to the daisies and late pale pink roses...............

..........thank you so much for dropping in here to my little blog space to visit me, lovely readers...... and for your kind comments too, they are always such a pleasure to read............i wish you a wonderful week ahead with sunny days and happy crafty times.............back soon xxxxxxxxxx

Monday, 18 August 2014

When i arrived back from our trip to the seaside i got on with hand quilting this scrappy summer quilt, and after just a few evenings it was done :) ...i quilted it round the edge of each square and then diagonally across the middle of the squares..........i chose a red and white striped binding for it, inspired by the striped awnings of the flower market in nice........

..............i love the prints in this quilt, as well as the floral feel and the bright fruit appliques and i liked how the red and white striped binding brought it all together.............

.................the backing is a gorgeous pam kitty picnic fabric with cherries and roses on yellow......

.............i love all kinds of quilts and a huge variety of patterns, but i know i will always want to make ones with simple squares (and maybe a bit of embellishment) every now and then......

..............i enjoy using text prints as a decorative feature too, and love how they look with a colourful image appliqued on top, like the cherries below which are sewn onto a patch of sew mama sew fabric.........

............i took pictures of this quilt all around the house, as usual following the best light, as well as avoiding bright sunlight..........here it is on an old chair in front of a book case on the top floor of our old house............

...........sometimes i like to add buttons to my quilts, and i had a little look at these fruit buttons from just another button company to see if any would look nice on my new quilt.............

...........i decided just to add the lemon slice to the patch which had lemons appliqued on it.......

...............here is daisy whirling and twirling with the new quilt.........the children use the quilts and the crochet blankets to make houses and tents and to wrap up their toys and each other :).............

...............we thought the chicken might look pretty with the quilt too...........it is a money box and full of loose change at the moment so is very heavy............

.............just as my summer quilt is finished we are feeling autumn in the air............the weekend was a mix of autumn coolness, strong winds, grey days and some sunshine..........we had a special outing to a lovely garden where i took this photo of the golden dahlias............

..............and i will leave you with this photo of the gorgeous zinnias which have been brightening up the cutting garden recently...........though a snail or two have been secretly munching on them over the weekend and the effect was not a good one..............

..............thank you for visiting me today, lovely readers, it is so good to see you...........and thank you too for taking the time to leave a comment, it is always a treat to hear from you too :).............i hope you have a wonderful week ahead, wherever in the world you may be..............back soon xxxxxxxxx

Monday, 11 August 2014

We are home again from our lovely trip to the seaside...........a wonderful week full of fresh air and sunshine, blue skies and blue sea............my husband had a great time sailing in the regatta and the family came down to stay too and we had lots of fun..............

.............mr p and i had a picnic lunch here the day we arrived, watching the waves and the boats and the sea birds..........we explored a bit more of the pretty island too..............

..................i love looking for wildflowers (still) a hobby that i began as a child with an i-spy book.....

................in the days when i used to paint flowers all day i would carefully draw and paint each flower in watercolour and eventually add them to textile designs or birthday card illustrations......

...........purple vetch was one of my favourites and the twining leaves were always useful to fill in gaps in all-over patterns..........i still love to have wildflower posies in the holiday house, even if i'm not actually painting them at the moment..................

...............i did a little bit of crochet over the week, finishing my latest flowery cushion.......

.................here it is outside the holiday cottage.....the chair is mine, i took it with me :)............

..................there were bright summer flowers everywhere, and it seemed there were many more than usual, perhaps because of all the good weather............below is a picture of a cottage garden at cemaes bay, packed with colourful flowers............the whole village was decked out with pretty pots and window boxes...............

...............charlie and daisy had a wonderful time playing on the beach and in the water.........there is a safe pool for children where they met up with lots of others too..........they went crab reeling on the pier every day, both proving very deft with the fishing nets, and fascinated by the crabs they caught............we enjoyed every moment of our time.............the house was very quiet when they all left on friday night and we tidied up and packed to come home on saturday morning...............

...............as always in beaumaris, i visited the inspiring janet bell gallery and met up with lovely janet herself for such a nice chat and catch up............the gallery always has something tempting and i bought a few treats, including a wonderful wintry print which i will show in a future post.............

...............i really love the pretty painted cottages...............i wonder what colour i would choose if i had my own holiday cottage?................i would probably go for something pale like this pretty blue one.............but i do love this rather bright raspberry pink one too..............

...............below is my project in this month's crafts beautiful magazine.............

.............a pink cottage and a blue cottage for a cross stitched pin cushion and tag...............find out more on the crafts beautiful website here...................

..............now we are home i am getting on with my two quilts and planning more that i'd like to make........i also want to paint some furniture and do some gardening as the garden has been growing madly while we were away..........lots of sweetpeas to snip, beans to pick, zinnias to snip..........and weeds to pull out...........the marsh marigold in the pond has suddenly grown lots of flowers too......i will be looking after the grandchildren a few times over the summer holidays and will enjoy hearing them running about and their little fluting voices again.............
i will leave you with this seaside picture of some ever hungry seagulls watching a family enjoying their picnic nearby............

......thank you for dropping in to see me here, lovely readers, it is a pleasure to have your visits and to read your sweet comments too............wishing you a wonderful week.........back soon xxxxxxxxxxxx

Friday, 1 August 2014

We are busy packing our bags here ready to go off to the seaside tomorrow for our annual trip to the sunny isle of angelsey where my husband will be sailing in the menai straits regatta again..............

.............so i thought i would just pop in and write a quick post before we go, as i will be taking a little blog break next week...........i will take my ipad with me though, and if i can get a signal (often tricky due to the welsh mountains) i will still be able to visit some of your lovely blogs.......

................i am showing some of the starry greengate cups today as they were on my mantelpiece and they seemed to fit well with the star patchwork pillow i wanted to show you too........

..............i sewed this big patchwork star block a while ago, around the time i was making my smaller stars quilt..........i found the pattern for it in an old quilting book, and i made it into a pillow more recently............i haven't made such big paper pieced blocks before, the ones i make are generally small and very fiddly, so this was quite a change for me and i rather liked it.............

...............i have made one more big star and now need to decide if i should carry on and make lots more for a quilt....or stop and turn it into another cushion?.........

...............and i wanted to show you the crochet i've been doing........this is the big granny square for the back of the latest flowery cushion...........i haven't managed to finish it before we go away, so will take it with me and finish it at the seaside.............

..............below is a photo of our sitting room mantelpiece and i am showing it because the painting above it is of where we are going (if you click on it you can see it much bigger)............it shows the little seaside town of beaumaris as you approach it, with the pretty pastel houses and the peaceful sweep of the sea and shore...............the painting is called gallows point and is by janet bell...............i bought it for my hb as a surprise a couple of years ago.............

.................thank you so much for dropping in to see me here in my little blog space, lovely readers, and thank you too for the lovely comments you leave me, they are such a treat to read..........wishing you a wonderful summer week, with sunny days and happy crafty times.........back soon xxxxxxxxx

my new book

about me

I am a designer, author, illustrator, stitcher and I just love crafting and making things. I live on the North West coast of England with my lovely husband. My family mean the world to me - I have two amazing grown up daughters and three sweet grandchildren - two boys and a girl.